Best selling author Malcolm Gladwell was criticised after rationalising in Outliers that Korean Air Lines’s poor safety record was based on an overly respectful culture. Gladwell’s research showed that on numerous occasions, even though the co-pilots saw disaster looming, the alarm wasn’t raised because they dared not challenge the boss. This bizarre story from Bloomberg suggests what Gladwell observed is deeply embedded in the Korean culture. A flight from New York’s JFK Airport was turned back to the departure gate on the orders of the daughter of the airline’s chairman. She demanded the removal of an attendant who didn’t know the company’s policy on serving Macadamia nuts. UPDATE: The story went global. With interesting consequences. The bullying daughter of the airline’s CEO has resigned. See below. – AH
UPDATE from Agence France-Presse:
The daughter of Korean Air’s CEO visited a cabin crew chief Sunday to apologise for kicking him off a plane over the way she was served some nuts, as allegations emerged that she forced him to kneel and ask forgiveness.
Cho Hyun-Ah, a top executive at Korean Air, resigned Tuesday from all her posts at the family-run flag carrier in the face of an intense public backlash and escalating investigations by state authorities.
The 40-year-old forced a New York-Seoul flight to return to the terminal and eject the head of cabin crew on December 5 after she took exception to the arrival of some macadamia nuts she had not asked for, and to the fact they were served in a packet rather than a bowl.
Cho, sitting in first class, forced cabin manager Park Chang-Jin and a female attendant to kneel in front of her, calling Park names, pushing him into the cockpit door and jabbing him with a service manual, according to his account of the incident.
Cho visited the homes of both staff members on Sunday morning to offer a personal apology, but neither was home so she left notes at their doors saying sorry, a company spokeswoman told AFP.
Cho has denied that she forced the pair to kneel. “I’ve never heard such thing. I don’t know anything about it,” she said when reporters asked her to confirm claims made by Park in an interview with Seoul’s KBS television station broadcast Friday night.
Another passenger who was sitting in first class on the flight confirmed most of Park’s account and said she saw the two attendants on their knees.
“I felt so sorry for the flight attendants, who looked totally terrified at her,” the passenger told KBS after meeting with Seoul prosecutors Saturday to give testimony over the incident.
Park said in his interview with KBS that the incident had been deeply humiliating.
“You can’t imagine the humiliation I felt unless you experience it yourself,” he said.
“She said, ‘Make contact (with air traffic control) right now to stop the plane. I’m not going to let this plane go.’ How could I disobey the daughter of the owner in a situation like that?” Park said.
He has also claimed that Korean Air officials had for the past week pressed him to blame himself over the incident. The airline declined to comment on the allegation.
Cho’s behaviour sparked huge criticism in South Korea, where she has been accused of being petty and arrogant, and prompted the transport ministry and Seoul prosecutors to launch investigations into whether she breached aviation safety laws and caused disruption to business.
Korean Air CEO Cho Yang-Ho gave a televised press conference Friday to apologise for his daughter’s “foolish act” and suggested he should share some of the blame for not bringing her up correctly.
“I failed to raise the child properly. It’s my fault,” he said.
The incident, which has been branded “nutgate” on social media, delayed the departure from New York by about 20 minutes. It arrived 11 minutes late in Seoul. – AFP
THE ORIGINAL BLOOMBERG STORY
By Kyunghee Park
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — The daughter of Korean Air Lines Co. Chairman Cho Yang Ho ordered a plane back to the gate so she could remove a crew member who gave an incorrect answer to a question on how to serve macadamia nuts, the airline said.
Heather Cho, 40, a vice president of the airline, ordered the head of the service crew on Flight 86 from New York to Seoul to deplane after an attendant earlier had served Cho macadamia nuts without asking, the carrier said. Cho then summoned the purser to ask a question about the airline’s policy on serving nuts. Cho ordered the man to leave the plane when he couldn’t answer. Under the carrier’s rules, passengers must be asked first before serving.
The purser didn’t know the company’s procedures and “kept on making up lies and excuses,” Korean Air said in a separate statement late yesterday.
The aircraft had already left the gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport for takeoff on Dec. 5. It took no more than 2 minutes to return to the gate to deplane the crew member, according to the airline. The flight was 11 minutes late when it arrived in Seoul on Dec. 6.
“She may be able to scold the crew member for inappropriate service as a vice president, but aviation law clearly states that it is the captain who supervises the flight crew,” South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper said in an editorial today that criticized Cho’s actions as an example of the “sense of privilege” felt by families running the country’s chaebol or conglomerates.
Airline Apology
“She should have abided by the rules as one of the passengers and she exceeded her authority,” the newspaper said.
Two calls to Korean Air’s main number in Seoul seeking a comment from Cho went to an automated answering service.
Korean Air in its statement late yesterday apologized to passengers for the inconvenience the incident caused. It noted the plane was less than 10 meters from the gate at JFK when the decision to return was made.
The Airbus A380 had about 250 passengers and 20 cabin crew.
South Korea’s Transport Ministry said yesterday it was investigating reports by Yonhap News and YTN about a Korean Air vice president ordering a crew member to deplane, according to an e-mailed statement that didn’t mention either Cho or the specific incident. Action will be taken against the carrier if it flouted any regulations, the ministry said.
‘Reasonable’ Action
Cho, who went to Cornell University, joined South Korea’s largest carrier in 1999, according to a biography posted on the website of Singapore’s Nanyang Business School. Cho is a member of the school’s advisory board. Cho manages Korean Air’s catering and in-flight sales business, cabin service and hotel business divisions, it said.
Given Cho’s position, it was “reasonable” for her “to raise a problem in service,” Korean Air said late yesterday.
Cho’s father is also chairman of the Hanjin Group of companies that includes Korean Air, Hanjin Shipping Co. and Hanjin Transportation Co. He’s also the president of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics organizing committee.
Korean Air rose in Seoul trading after jet-fuel swaps in Singapore fell yesterday to the lowest since May 2010, according to data from PVM Oil Associated Ltd. The shares traded up 3.6 percent as of 11:27 a.m., with Asiana Airlines Inc. up 2.8 percent. – BLOOMBERG
